Middle English ridil ; from Old English hriddel, earlier hridder ; from base of hridrian, to sift, winnow, akin to German reiter ; from Indo-European base an unverified form (s)ker-, to cut, separate from source harvest

From Middle English riddil, ridelle (â€œsieveâ€) from Old English hriddel (â€œsieveâ€), alteration of earlier hridder, hrÄ«der from Proto-Germanic *hridÄ… (â€œsieveâ€), from Proto-Germanic *hrid- (â€œto shakeâ€), from Proto-Indo-European *krey-. Akin to German Reiter (â€œsieveâ€), Old Norse hreinn (â€œpure, cleanâ€), Old High German hreini (â€œpure, cleanâ€), GothicðŒ·ð‚ðŒ°ðŒ¹ðŒ½ðƒ (hrains, â€œclean, pureâ€). More at rinse.

Sentence Examples

Caught in the middle of the battle between Others and Watchers, her danger was increasing, and he was stuck in a riddle he couldn't quite solve.

Fred couldn't resist a mystery and here was a riddle on-site.

He feared the palace would go down with Death, what with the nonsense she was spouting about leaving. He took in his best friend's features, uncertain whether becoming Death was a good thing or not. Gabe looked the same, and hopefully, he wouldn't turn into the riddle-talking sociopath that preceded him.

Haeckel's Riddle of the Universe maintains that " life may be something not only ultra-terrestrial, but even immaterial, something outside our present categories of matter and energy; as real as they are, but different, and utilizing them for its own purpose " (Life and Matter, 1906, p. 198).

Men have told me that there is no riddle so cunning that you can not solve it.

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I am any man's suitor, If any will be my tutor: Some say this life is pleasant, Some think it speedeth fast, In time there is no present, In eternity no future, In eternity no past. We laugh, we cry, we are born, we die. Who will riddle me the how and the why ?